Sarcastic wrote:So when Fleury freaks out so does the rest of the team and then it all goes to hell. Thanks for the explanation, Nisky.

Probably some truth to that, Fleury does not handle bad goals well at all and panics. The team needs to clamp up and protect him and then it takes us off our game. There is no reason to change how you play because of fluke goals yet this team did that a lot when Fleury gave them up and then we lose bad.

Vokoun let up a couple not so good goals but the team just went and played their game because they knew he wasn't going to freak out and get down on himself like Fleury does.

When he was a free agent I was really concerned he would go to the Flyers. (and then he goes to the Caps ) - anyway, it worked out great, and I was really happy when we acquired him last summer, and even more so now obviously.

The Pens should still try exploring in trading Fleury this offseason, the only notable goalies FA's this coming offseason are Backstrom and Smith with Nabakov as an notable exception. No matter what the Pens do, if they stay with Vokoun the rest of the playoffs then Fleury's feelings will be hurt and the ice cream has melted there is no going back so you might as well get what you can for Fleury.

i know everyone is looking up to Vokoun and we should be. However, personally, I don't think he is a world class elite goalie. Even though I'm anti-fluery and realistically speaking the thing about Koun is that he is a consistent goalie and really doesn't have the stopping power as the other 3 goalies in the semi-finals. The Pens D really did not let the opposing team take sharp shots against him, take a look at amount of the blocked shots per game by the Pens. I'm not saying Koun did not make some great saves, however, when you compare the level of shots and the saves the other goalies made, you know. In the end, Vokoun is our savior and the best 'back-up' goalie the Pens wished for. I'm really crossing my fingers that Pens D will come strong and Koun will not let any weak shots in.

nhl94 wrote:i know everyone is looking up to Vokoun and we should be. However, personally, I don't think he is a world class elite goalie. Even though I'm anti-fluery and realistically speaking the thing about Koun is that he is a consistent goalie and really doesn't have the stopping power as the other 3 goalies in the semi-finals. The Pens D really did not let the opposing team take sharp shots against him, take a look at amount of the blocked shots per game by the Pens. I'm not saying Koun did not make some great saves, however, when you compare the level of shots and the saves the other goalies made, you know. In the end, Vokoun is our savior and the best 'back-up' goalie the Pens wished for. I'm really crossing my fingers that Pens D will come strong and Koun will not let any weak shots in.

nhl94 wrote:i know everyone is looking up to Vokoun and we should be. However, personally, I don't think he is a world class elite goalie. Even though I'm anti-fluery and realistically speaking the thing about Koun is that he is a consistent goalie and really doesn't have the stopping power as the other 3 goalies in the semi-finals. The Pens D really did not let the opposing team take sharp shots against him, take a look at amount of the blocked shots per game by the Pens. I'm not saying Koun did not make some great saves, however, when you compare the level of shots and the saves the other goalies made, you know. In the end, Vokoun is our savior and the best 'back-up' goalie the Pens wished for. I'm really crossing my fingers that Pens D will come strong and Koun will not let any weak shots in.

Let's go Pens!

I don't see the reason for everyone to continuously discredit a goaltender that has performed at elite levels his entire career.

nhl94 wrote:i know everyone is looking up to Vokoun and we should be. However, personally, I don't think he is a world class elite goalie. Even though I'm anti-fluery and realistically speaking the thing about Koun is that he is a consistent goalie and really doesn't have the stopping power as the other 3 goalies in the semi-finals. The Pens D really did not let the opposing team take sharp shots against him, take a look at amount of the blocked shots per game by the Pens. I'm not saying Koun did not make some great saves, however, when you compare the level of shots and the saves the other goalies made, you know. In the end, Vokoun is our savior and the best 'back-up' goalie the Pens wished for. I'm really crossing my fingers that Pens D will come strong and Koun will not let any weak shots in.

Let's go Pens!

In your opinion how many world class elite goalies currently play in the NHL and who are they?

nhl94 wrote:i know everyone is looking up to Vokoun and we should be. However, personally, I don't think he is a world class elite goalie. Even though I'm anti-fluery and realistically speaking the thing about Koun is that he is a consistent goalie and really doesn't have the stopping power as the other 3 goalies in the semi-finals. The Pens D really did not let the opposing team take sharp shots against him, take a look at amount of the blocked shots per game by the Pens. I'm not saying Koun did not make some great saves, however, when you compare the level of shots and the saves the other goalies made, you know. In the end, Vokoun is our savior and the best 'back-up' goalie the Pens wished for. I'm really crossing my fingers that Pens D will come strong and Koun will not let any weak shots in.

Let's go Pens!

I don't see the reason for everyone to continuously discredit a goaltender that has performed at elite levels his entire career.

My intention was not to discredit Vokoun at all, if anyone I want to discredit is Fluery and I felt that years back. Didn't want anyone to lose hope, just non-subjectively stating how our goalies compared to the other teams fighting for the cup right now, and the franchise outlook will be looking to train a younger goalie. Vokoun might look like our GOD right now, but don't forget our D fought hard as well to keep us alive. Fleury failed even accepting weak shots, thus loosing our confidence as a team.

nhl94 wrote:i know everyone is looking up to Vokoun and we should be. However, personally, I don't think he is a world class elite goalie. Even though I'm anti-fluery and realistically speaking the thing about Koun is that he is a consistent goalie and really doesn't have the stopping power as the other 3 goalies in the semi-finals. The Pens D really did not let the opposing team take sharp shots against him, take a look at amount of the blocked shots per game by the Pens. I'm not saying Koun did not make some great saves, however, when you compare the level of shots and the saves the other goalies made, you know. In the end, Vokoun is our savior and the best 'back-up' goalie the Pens wished for. I'm really crossing my fingers that Pens D will come strong and Koun will not let any weak shots in.

Let's go Pens!

In your opinion how many world class elite goalies currently play in the NHL and who are they?

the series between kings and sharks was a battle of the goalies, take a look at he GAA...

nhl94 wrote:i know everyone is looking up to Vokoun and we should be. However, personally, I don't think he is a world class elite goalie. Even though I'm anti-fluery and realistically speaking the thing about Koun is that he is a consistent goalie and really doesn't have the stopping power as the other 3 goalies in the semi-finals. The Pens D really did not let the opposing team take sharp shots against him, take a look at amount of the blocked shots per game by the Pens. I'm not saying Koun did not make some great saves, however, when you compare the level of shots and the saves the other goalies made, you know. In the end, Vokoun is our savior and the best 'back-up' goalie the Pens wished for. I'm really crossing my fingers that Pens D will come strong and Koun will not let any weak shots in.

Let's go Pens!

Very well said, Vokoun will be as strong as the bluelines play infront of him. He sure beats the heck out of how Fleury was playing. He is a great goalie and brings his game night in night out.

nhl94 wrote:i know everyone is looking up to Vokoun and we should be. However, personally, I don't think he is a world class elite goalie. Even though I'm anti-fluery and realistically speaking the thing about Koun is that he is a consistent goalie and really doesn't have the stopping power as the other 3 goalies in the semi-finals. The Pens D really did not let the opposing team take sharp shots against him, take a look at amount of the blocked shots per game by the Pens. I'm not saying Koun did not make some great saves, however, when you compare the level of shots and the saves the other goalies made, you know. In the end, Vokoun is our savior and the best 'back-up' goalie the Pens wished for. I'm really crossing my fingers that Pens D will come strong and Koun will not let any weak shots in.

Let's go Pens!

In your opinion how many world class elite goalies currently play in the NHL and who are they?

the series between kings and sharks was a battle of the goalies, take a look at he GAA...

Two? Are you saying there are two world class elite goalies in the NHL? Do the style of play of their respective teams play any part in their GAA? In your opinion.

The Pens don't need their goalie to be world class. They score plenty, they just need their goalie to be good enough to ensure that 3-4 goals is enough to win. LA's a different story, they don't have a big offense so it's vital to them that Quick is outstanding. I agree that Vokoun is not necessarily an elite goalie but he's always been very good and he's proving to be plenty good behind the Pens juggernaut offense.

On that note, the Kings don't scare me much should the Pens meet them in the Finals. The Pens just made Anderson look ordinary, I think they'd do the same to Quick.

Henry Hank wrote:The Pens don't need their goalie to be world class. They score plenty, they just need their goalie to be good enough to ensure that 3-4 goals is enough to win. LA's a different story, they don't have a big offense so it's vital to them that Quick is outstanding. I agree that Vokoun is not necessarily an elite goalie but he's always been very good and he's proving to be plenty good behind the Pens juggernaut offense.

On that note, the Kings don't scare me much should the Pens meet them in the Finals. The Pens just made Anderson look ordinary, I think they'd do the same to Quick.

IMO a Penguins goalie will never appear to be world class due to their style of play

nhl94 wrote:i know everyone is looking up to Vokoun and we should be. However, personally, I don't think he is a world class elite goalie. Even though I'm anti-fluery and realistically speaking the thing about Koun is that he is a consistent goalie and really doesn't have the stopping power as the other 3 goalies in the semi-finals. The Pens D really did not let the opposing team take sharp shots against him, take a look at amount of the blocked shots per game by the Pens. I'm not saying Koun did not make some great saves, however, when you compare the level of shots and the saves the other goalies made, you know. In the end, Vokoun is our savior and the best 'back-up' goalie the Pens wished for. I'm really crossing my fingers that Pens D will come strong and Koun will not let any weak shots in.

Let's go Pens!

In your opinion how many world class elite goalies currently play in the NHL and who are they?

the series between kings and sharks was a battle of the goalies, take a look at he GAA...

Two? Are you saying there are two world class elite goalies in the NHL? Do the style of play of their respective teams play any part in their GAA? In your opinion.

that was just an example of two solid monster goalies that we never had. they were rock-solidly consistent and def took a beating of shots. Do you think anyone of our goalies could of done better than those two? And I wouldn't use the Pens offensive power to compare how other goalies do against us, that's not an average comparison at all.

In another thread, someone mentioned an article by Mike Colligan that breaks down what the Pens need to do to be successful against the Bruins. I looked around and couldn't find that, but I did find this article of his on the Hartzell signing back in April:

The gist of it is that he hypothesizes that the only way the Hartzell signing makes sense from the Pens point of view or Hartzell's is if the Pens' management sees the goalie situation as much less settled than most people think. Colligan wonders if the Hartzell signing was already to move to make it possible to ditch Fleury in the off-season and go with a Vokoun/Hartzell or Vokoun/Zatkoff tandem at least for the next year or two. Not really anything that people haven't speculated about already, but I thought it was a well-thought-out version of this viewpoint and fairly prescient, given that it was written before the playoffs.

largegarlic wrote:In another thread, someone mentioned an article by Mike Colligan that breaks down what the Pens need to do to be successful against the Bruins. I looked around and couldn't find that, but I did find this article of his on the Hartzell signing back in April:

The gist of it is that he hypothesizes that the only way the Hartzell signing makes sense from the Pens point of view or Hartzell's is if the Pens' management sees the goalie situation as much less settled than most people think. Colligan wonders if the Hartzell signing was already to move to make it possible to ditch Fleury in the off-season and go with a Vokoun/Hartzell or Vokoun/Zatkoff tandem at least for the next year or two. Not really anything that people haven't speculated about already, but I thought it was a well-thought-out version of this viewpoint and fairly prescient, given that it was written before the playoffs.